What I'm Really Learning From College

Time is a weird thing. Take this picture I found cleaning some drawers out today, for instance. On the back in my Mom's handwriting it reads "Corey and Ryan, Halloween 1987." For those of you not good at math, I was three years old in 1987. I can remember this almost as clearly as if it was yesterday... now why is that? Nothing extraordinary or traumatic happened that Halloween. I remember Ryan, myself, and our parents went to the store together so we could have matching Halloween costumes, and we ended up picking these Viking ones, hardcore, right? I can even remember the font on the box, and how the swords were unusually strong for plastic toys. Hell, I remember the old lady at the end of the block who gave us homemade cookies, back when you could live in a small town and not worry that some pyscho was going to jam needles into it or something. I can remember things like this without breaking a sweat... but I take a basic Plant Biology midterm and I can't remember seven stages of cell division.

It's kind of surreal to think of all the growing up I have done in the 18 years since my Mom snapped that picture on Mulvane St. Learning about death, friends gained and friends lost, moving, finding the love of your life, learning about death all over again, graduating high school and going to college, and then losing the love of your life. Soon, graduating college will be on that list. After that - the real world, marriage and possibly a family of my own. There's not exactly a lot more growing up to do after that. To think... I'm actually almost a full-blown adult, and yet, something is more than mildly comforting at looking at this old picture, at the smile and look in my eyes. Here is little Corey, no stress, no loss of innocence, completely happy and content with the world around him... a world he knows primarily as one that gives him candy for knocking on a door and saying "Trick or Treat" on a certain day.

Ahh, to be a kid again......